Govt to limit deployment of Filipino workers abroad

THE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said it may limit the deployment of Filipino workers to the energy and aerospace industries in other countries, as local firms may need their services.

DOLE’s Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) Director Dominique R. Tutay said the planned

deployment restrictions are expected to cover workers in petrochemicals and computer numerical control machinists in the aerospace industry.

Tutay said the DOLE is now conducting an inventory of the number of workers in both industries to determine if there is a need to implement the deployment restriction.

“[The DOLE] will meet [with stakeholders] because we are checking if our supply [of manpower] is already enough or we would need to maintain more workers [locally],” Tutay told reporters in an ambush interview last week.

The DOLE official said this is in addition to the deployment restriction the agency is considering for the construction industry, which is currently in need of additional workers due to the numerous projects undertaken by the private sector and the government.

Last March, the BusinessMirror reported that the deployment of construction workers abroad declined in 2016 and 2017 even without government intervention.

Tutay said the government is trying to address the shortage of local construction workers by coordinating with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and the Department of Trade and Industry in crafting the 2030 construction road map.

“We are now in the action planning stage, and we have already identified priority programs for the construction sector,” said Tutay.

Earlier this year, the BLE estimated the construction industry may need some 200,000 additional workers for various projects. However, the private sector estimated the demand at over a million.

The DOLE said skills shortage occurs when “hard-to-fill jobs vacancies with few applicants experience deficiency in the supply of qualified applicants compared to the number of available jobs.”

The agency said in June that it may also limit the deployment of nurses abroad to address the shortage here in the country. The DOLE made the pronouncement after the Philippine Nurses Association recommended the measure to address fill the required number of nurses to man local medical facilities.

In February the Department of Health pointed out that the lack of nurses, particularly in the public sector, will be one of the challenges in implementing the Universal Health Care System, which is being pushed by the Duterte administration.